My media group started editing our opening title sequence on Thursday the 20th of May. We got all of our shots that we took on the shoot day together in a folder and created the timeline of the scene (as all the shots were in order, since we filmed the scene with the first part first and the second part second) whilst choosing which shots we wanted to use.
After we had put them all in a sequence so that the opening scene ran properly from start to finish, we had to shorten the shots to make it run smoother. Since Neave was in charge of editing, she was in charge of the computer skills, but it was a very team involved process and we all contributed to each decision. There were many challenges during this process, most of them being quite easy to overcome, but we came across one challenge in particular that was quite tricky. We had accidentally crossed the 180-degree rule in the searching part of the scene, and this was really tricky. After a discussion about how to deal with the situation we decided the best way around it was to cut the end off of the scene before (so that it worked smoother into the next scene without her showing how she was moving into the next room). This meant that the scene after that had the mistake in it didn’t look as bad as we didn’t see how she moved into the room in the shot before.
We also took the editorial decision to cut the scene with the dead body in it. Despite the fact that I enjoyed playing that role in the scene, and that I liked having the blooded-up victim in the storyline I think, and the media group thinks that it runs smoother and looks better in general without it. It kind of slowed the scene down and to be honest my acting wasn’t really helping the opening title sequence at all.
My favourite part of the editing process was most definitely when we got to add the music to the opening scene. We looked on multiple different websites including freesound.org and epidemicsound.com, but we found a few really good thriller scene soundtracks and we voted our favourite. There was a slight problem with the soundtrack we picked, as it was a bit fast, but I was able to import it into my logic on my MacBook, and I used varispeed to slow it down without altering the pitch or anything else on the soundtrack. We then bounced it and put it alongside the opening title sequence. It really added something to the sequence. Finally, we just decided to cut out any of the talking in the background in the film audio, and then copy some background ambience across so that there was some ambience throughout the opening scene.
The film day started at 8:30 on Monday the 10th of May. I went to our media class and waited for Mike, Mathilde, Matt and for the rest of the media film team to show up. We then went to the editing suite to gather all the camera gear we needed for the shoot day and headed for the bus to drive to “Ewhurst Place” were we filmed our opening title sequence. We got all the camera gear out of the bus, along with the props and costume and took it inside to the Ewhurst kitchen area to lay it out for easy access. After that, Mathilde got into the costume that Neave had got for her, and we decided that it would look better if she didn’t wear the blue suit blazer, as not only did it not look great, it also was very restricting, meaning Mathilde would not be able to be as free with her motions in the scene. We then walked around Ewhurst to find the best place in the house to film. We originally had the idea to film her going up the stairs and looking in different rooms until she finds the victim, and later the killer, but Mike had a better more interesting filming location in mind for the scene. Ewhurst was having some work done to it, and the scaffolding around the building made for a very interesting search scene for the FBI agent, and it also led into the boiler room, and finally the big cellar which would be the final location in the scene where she finds the killer. The cellar was dirty, abandoned and had some cool but also quite scary furniture inside which made it look very creepy and it would instantly put the audience on edge as she searched through it. Also, the scaffolding area made it look like the scene could have been shot anywhere, as oppose to searching inside a house which could only be a house, this looks like it could have been shot quite literally on a building site, as oppose to inside a house.
picture of scaffolding from phone
The next thing we did was film, and so we grabbed the camera from the kitchen area and headed to the scaffolding area. Since Mike had to go then and would be back later for his part of the scene at the end, we pretty much filmed in the order that the shots will come in the sequence, which made it very easy for us to remember to film all the shots we needed. We got loads of different angles of Mathilde navigating the scaffolding and looking for the killer, and then it went into the dark boiler room. We needed to light this area with the lighting equipment that we brought with us, and so we turned the light off in the room and lit it ourselves so that we could get the best shots of Mathilde’s face. We also had to facilitate the area that the dying body (played by myself) would have to lie on, and direct Mathilde in how she would stumble upon me. We filmed multiple shots for this and did some close ups on me telling Mathilde that the killer was still there, and some close ups of Mathilde’s reaction. For this part of the day, I had to get changed into my costume, and be covered in fake blood. Moving from the boiling room to the cellar was a difficult part to film, as not only was it very cramped, but we had to make sure that Mathilde was on the correct side of each shot, so that it would look natural and realistic in the final cut. In between the cellar and the boiler room, there was a really cool room where all the suitcases were stored for the boarding house, and it made for quite a cool shot with Mathilde. I was operating the camera in this shot, and I had to do a focus pull from focussing on the suitcases, to Mathilde’s face looking back, to the suitcases. Since this was quite a hard shot to pull off, we took 4 or 5 attempts so that we had a few to choose from. Next, Mike got back, and we were able to film all the parts with him involved. We first just got a lay out of the room, and then filmed according to our plan. As opposed to the plan, where Mathilde just finds the killer and shoots him, we decided that if the killer snuck up behind her and pointed a gun to her head would be a better way to show off the FBI agents’ skills as she would have to kill him from a difficult position. Matt taught Mathilde some fighting choreography so that it would look realistic and skilful when she overcame Mikes character at the end of the scene. For this part of the shoot day, since the cellar was very dark, we again had to light it with the lighting equipment that we had brought with us. This had its obvious benefits, but it did mean we had to be very careful of where we stood, as it was very easy to cast a shadow as a member of the crew, which would obviously not look good in the final cut.
pictures
I really enjoyed the shoot day. My favourite part of the day was probably when I had to get in costume and get fake blood poured on me for that part of the scene. I found that quite a strange and new experience, but I enjoyed it a lot none-the-less. We had many difficulties to overcome on the shoot day (including not tripping over all the small little bumps and steps in Ewhurst, lighting accordingly and remaining in focus), but the most difficult part for our group was making sure that Mathilde entered from the correct side of the camera, and therefore from the correct side of the screen. This took us a while to figure out, and became quite confusing at times, but now that we have begun editing, I think that we got it right. I am really excited about our opening title sequence, as now that I have seen the shots, it really looks great.
This is our test shoot for our media opening scene. It was very rough and was used to get an idea of what our opening scene would be like, and also to see if there would be any possible issues or challenges that we might have to overcome on the shoot day which we did not previously consider. Since we did not have the actors for the test shoot, we used Neave instead of Mathilde as the FBI agent, and she used a cartoon of juice as the gun as we didn’t have the props. We also used Callum as the killer instead of Mike. We also had to use a hoodie and some tracksuit bottoms to simulate the dead body as we didn’t have enough people around to have the dead body as an actual person. We needed to use a large place for the test shoot, as our opening scene contains a lot of the FBI agent walking around and searching the building, and so we used the common room.
The issue with the common room, which is reflected in the test shoot scene, is that it was tricky to emulate the searching of different rooms, which we will have to film in the real shoot as we want it to make it look like the FBI agent is searching the building properly. We also had the issue of other people in the common room in the background of the scene, but that wasn’t such an issue, and wasn’t something we could control during the test shoot.
Considering that it was a test shoot to see roughly how our real opening scene would pan out, I think it went well, however I think the biggest and most important part of the scene is the shooting of the murderer, and I think we need to pull that off better than we managed to in the test shoot.
I think it was a good idea to have a close up on the face to show how deranged the murderer is, but I think it needs to be smoother, and I think we also need to have more shots of the shooting itself.
I also think there should be more time before the shot in which the murderer and the FBI agent just stare at each other, or as an alternative option, the murderer tries to ambush the FBI agent from an unknown location, and so she has to react quickly to shoot him. If we can pull off the shooting, I think it will make the opening scene a whole lot better. Finally, the only other issue that we had is that we could not have dialogue between the dying body and the FBI agent in the test shoot as the dying body was played by a jumper and a tracksuit, but we will have to have this in the real thing.
Despite being quite different to our opening scene, these media products also have quite a lot in common with each other. For example, in Line of Duty (season 6 trailer) and in Who Killed Sara, they both revolve around a murder, and quite a few people in involved in that one murder.
Also, Battlefield Hardline and The Little Things both look like they show the most exciting life of a regular LA police officer.
All of these media products convey the genre of thriller, and so we can use them to our advantage to make sure that our opening scene also conveys the genre of thriller. This will hugely impact the film and appeal more to the target audience as it will show the genre more clearly. For example, we can use the intensity of using the fast closeup shots in Line of Duty as it shows that genre, and we can also use the dark undertones in the car scene in the trailer of The Little Things and learn and observe how they created these dark undertones. I can use all of these for inspiration for our own opening scene.
There are also many differences that I have mentioned between our opening scene and the media products that I have shown, and all of the media products that I have shown are also different from each other. For example, the police officer in The Little Things is trying to find one man who is committing loads of crimes and murders in LA, whereas in the UK based Line of Duty, it is about an entire precinct trying to take down a large group of criminals. This shows that each of these different media products have different things that I can use for inspiration in my opening scene.
The genre that our opening scene will be is a thriller, since it contains violence, gore and action. If we were to say it had a sub-genre, I would probably say it was a crime-thriller, as it is about the FBI agent, and there is even crime in the opening scene. I am going to pick a range of media products that either share the same genre, or if I can find some, the same sub-genre as our opening title sequence.
Firstly, I am going to pick a film that is also a crim-thriller. The film that I am going to analyse and compare to our opening scene is The Little Things
.
This film was directed by John Lee Hancock, and released on the 16th of April 2021, and was produced by Warner Bros Studios. From what I can tell in the trailer, there are 3 main characters in the film: the main police officer, his boss, and the suspect. Our opening scene also consists of 3 main characters (the murderer, the FBI agent and the victim). Another similarity is that in the scenes where it is intense and the killer may be around, it is very dark and has quite sinister undertones, which is what we would like to convey in our opening scene, like that part in the trailer where he is looking in the suspects car, and is asking about the space in the boot.
What I gathered from the trailer of the movie, is that a recurring theme in the film is that the police officer perhaps isn’t giving the respect or the time of day to put his points and ideas about the case across, and can’t seem to prove his ability to his superiors, which is quite similar to the original idea that we had in place for our FBI agent (a woman who isn’t respected by her colleagues, but is still the best agent on the force). I was interested to see if there were any editing or camera techniques within the scene that I think might be good to incorporate in our opening scene, and so I picked a specific scene from the film and watched it to find out.
I really like the use of the mid shot on the police officers face whilst he is reversing, but considering our opening scene doesn’t contain any cars, it wouldn’t be that useful to us. One shot that I really liked was the mid shot through the windshield on the suspects face before he turns to speak to the police officer, as you can really see how deranged he looks. This is something that we could incorporate into our scene.
In terms of editing, this scene from the film has quite long shots, which we may use at the start of the opening scene whilst the FBI agent is still searching the building, but I think we would want to speed it up whilst she is searching for the murderer and for when she finds him, as it will building up intensity in the scene. There are quite a few differences between our opening scene and the film I have chosen, for example in our scene it is a female FBI agent, whereas in the film, it looks to be a male detective or police officer. Our FBI agent is also going to be dressed more like the police officers’ boss in the film than the police officer, as she will be wearing a suit as oppose to a uniform. Ours will also be set in the UK, as oppose to LA, and will be based mostly inside.
The next media product that I am going to analyse is a thriller TV show called Who killed Sara. The first episode was released on the 24th of March 2021 by Netflix, directed by David Ruiz Barnardo de la Rosa.
Since this is a thriller TV series and doesn’t contain many police officers (judging from the trailer), the similarities between our opening scene and this series may be limited, but this may work as an advantage, as it may provide some inspiration. One similarity, however, is that both our opening scene and this series are based around a murder, but the difference is the murder in our opening scene was an attempt at murder that happened in the present, whereas in the series, it happened a long time ago. Again, this series has quite dark undertones judging from the trailer, which is what we would like to convey in our opening scene.
However, it seems that the similarities stop there. There are far more characters in the series than in our opening scene, and a few of them are of a different nationality. Also, one huge difference is that the enemy or villain in the series is wearing a suit and is much better dressed than the main character who is getting revenge, which is entirely the opposite to ours, as the main character (the FBI agent) is wearing a suit, but the murderer is very poorly dressed.
This also seems to be set somewhere in North or South America, and the theme of their series is revenge, whereas ours is just the FBI agent doing her job and killing the murderer. This shows that there is quite a big difference between our opening scene and this TV series that I selected.
The next media product that I am going to choose is a crime thriller video game. The video game Battlefield Hardline, which was released on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and other gaming platforms on the 17th of March 2015. It was developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts. The director was Ian Milham.
This game has multiplayer and campaign modes that you can select from. The campaign allows you to be a police officer in California and Florida. I played the first part of this campaign when I was younger, and it entailed going into a house and searching it for any illegal substances, and then taking the people in when the substances where found. This is very similar to our opening scene, as it is literally police officers searching a house, but the difference is, ours is an FBI agent, and she’s searching for a murder instead of drugs. Here is the trailer for the game, as it shows the different game modes, and the campaign. I have also shown the first scene in the campaign in which I played, and some of the multiplayer gameplay.
There are many similarities between this video game and our opening scene. For example, it shows the police officers in the campaign searching through the house. Also, one of the maps on the multiplayer campaign is a house, and you play as both the police officer and the criminals.
However, the general tone and theme of the video game seems to differ from our opening scene. The video game presents itself as a media product that revolved almost entirely around the guns and perhaps a little bit of drug usage, which is far from the case in our opening scene. It also shows bigger showdowns, with a large amount of police officers infiltrating an area with a large number of criminals, which is very different from our one FBI agent and our one murderer.
Also, the location is very different again, as ours is in Southern UK, whereas this is in Western USA for the most part. There is also a huge amount of characters in the video game and a very small amount in our opening scene, showing that there is quite a big difference between the two.
For my next media product comparison, I am going to choose another thriller TV series called Line of Duty released in June 2012. It was produced by World Productions and was directed by Jed Mercurio.
From the series 1 trailer that I watched, there seem to be a lot of similarities with our opening scene and this TV series. For example, there is a lot of female representation in the police force, which is what we have tried to show in our opening scene by making the FBI agent female. Also, the criminals are poorly dressed, look scrappy and scary which is how we want our murderer to look (just without the balaclava that they wear in the series).
Also, it is set in the UK, and it looks like it is set in London, which is not far away from where we will be shooting our opening scene. However, there are also quite a few differences between our opening scene and this TV series. Firstly, there didn’t seem to be a lot of blood or gore, and so it was almost more of a crime-drama than a crime-thriller. Another point to back this up is that within the trailer there was a hint that there was a rogue police officer within the precinct, which draws away from the thriller and more towards the drama. One thing that I really liked from the trailer, however, was that there were quite a few close ups on characters faces to show their true emotions, which is something that I think would be vital to replicate in our opening scene.
Also, the fast-editing shots to intensify the trailer is something that we have thought of doing in our opening scene as it goes on. Since this TV series had quite a few seasons, I am also going to analyse the series 6 trailer and compare it to our opening scene, to see if the show has changed.
Again, the representation of female roles is a huge similarity between our opening scene and the series trailer, which isn’t something that I have noticed in any of the other media products that I have compared. There are no big changes to compare, as the season 6 trailer was very similar to the season 1 trailer. I think this series is quite similar to ours but leans more towards the drama side than to the thriller side, and we would really like to present our opening scene as a thriller.
On the shoot day there are going to be 3 main roles that Maddie, Neave and I are going to have to fill.
Role
What that role does
Examples
Maddie
Director
The director essentially has control over the more creative aspects of the production. They position the actors and help position the cameras to make sure they can capture on film what they are thinking in their heads.
Examples of directors include Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, and Christopher Nolan.
Neave
Editor
The film editor chooses shots from a huge amount of footage that was taken on set and combines them to create the final product and scene. It can become quite a creative role, as each editor will assemble the shots in a unique way, and so perhaps with our opening scene, the director (or possibly even all of us) will have a look at which shots we want to keep, and which order we put them in.
Examples of editors are Stephen Mirrione, Kirk Baxter and Thelma Schoonmaker.
Bashy (me)
Camera person
The camera person’s (or the camera operator’s) duty is to film all the different aspects and perspectives of a scene for the film. They would need to take into account the lighting of the scene, the layout of the scene, and what parts they will keep in focus. Again, this can become quite a creative role, and so we will all probably have a say in how we position the cameras, but we have also been told that it is better to have more than we need to work with, than less.
Examples of cameramen include Roger Deakins and Daniel Moder.
The reason I took on the role of the camera man was more down to Maddie’s and Neave’s specialities. Neave is more familiar with the editing software and has used it in more depth than I have, and since Maddie’s original idea is what we are basing this opening scene off of, it seems more fitting that she has the most creative role out of the three of us. I was also very excited to work with the cameras, and so I am thrilled that I got this role anyway. Here is a video of the day in the life of a cinematography, working the camera.
Preparation before the shoot is essential. We need to remember to bring all the props, all the costumes and everything that we will need for the shoot. For me in particular, I will need to bring the fake blood and the costume for the dying body. We will also need to remember to bring with us the storyboards that we created (as they have visual aids to help us remember how we originally pictured the scene), our shot list and our shooting schedule. To remember all of these things, I have set reminders for the day. I have set one for the day before the shoot, and one for the day of the shoot so that I am more prepared.
Everyone’s role on the shoot day is important. Maddie needs to direct the entire process, Neave will need to edit, and I will need to film. Without my role, there wouldn’t be anything to edit or show at the end, but it is also important that I remember some other fundamental parts of my role. I will need to consider lighting, the positioning of the camera, and I will need to film as much as possible so that Neave has more than enough to choose from when editing, as opposed to being limited to a certain amount. There are some challenges that I can see now that we will have to think about before the shoot day, to make sure everything runs smoothly. Firstly, since I am in one of the scenes as the dying body, we will need either Maddie or Neave to film that part. If we decide this before the shoot day, it will save a lot of stress and time on the day. I also considered in my previous blog post that the amount of fake blood that I ordered may not be sufficient, and so I am going to order some more to be 100% certain.
Our opening scene is a thriller. This is going to be echoed throughout our opening scene with the blood, gore and violence within it. I will have to do my part as camera man to convey the genre, and so I will try and highlight the gory parts, the violent parts and make sure that the blood is visible in the scene. I’m sure that we will all pitch in to help each other’s roles as well.
Our target audience in my eyes has always been people who love crime and thriller movies, mostly aged around 15 and up, with the majority being around 18-25 years old, as this opening scene is for a crime-thriller. The expectations for the opening scene of a crime thriller will have to include crime (the murderer) and some gore and violence (the FBI agent shooting and the victim). We will have to convey this the best way we can, using our props and making sure we know what we can do within our roles to meet these expectations. I will have to make sure the camera angles and shots best exhibit the gory and the violent scenes, and so I think we will use a lot of close ups on the bloody and gory sections, but also some mid and long shots to show how much blood there is, for example coming from the victim as the shot will display the whole body.
